Yellowstone Park Foundation donates $11M to park

By JODI HAUSEN Chronicle Staff Writer

Yellowstone National Park received a record-breaking $11 million donation in 2008 from a Bozeman-based foundation dedicated to providing funds for programs that might not otherwise exist, Suzanne Lewis, the park’s superintendent said Monday.

Instituted in 1996 in Bozeman, the Yellowstone Park Foundation typically donates between $3 and $4 million each year, but in 2008 the foundation gave the park $8.8 million of a $15 million capital campaign for a new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center. Slated to open in August 2010, the 25,000-square-foot visitor’s center will include state-of-the art interactive interpretive displays and is currently under construction, Lewis said.

The remainder of the funds given to the country’s first national park will go primarily to education and research programs with $343,000 to the Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps, $336,000 toward wolf research and conservation, $271,000 for online learning resources — particularly the Old Faithful Webcam — and $200,000 for trail rehabilitation. Other funds will be dedicated to westslope cutthroat trout restoration, construction of a livestock barn for horses and mules used by rangers, excavation and study of a prehistoric archeological site on Yellowstone Lake and wildlife health studies.

Lewis said she wasn’t surprised by the significant jump in the foundation’s annual donation because she knew the visitor center campaign was successful. But, she said, she was impressed.

“What it illustrates is what a great organization the foundation is and how effective they are at fundraising,” she said. “They are critical in helping us to connect with people around the world.”

The donations the foundation raised “represent thousands upon thousands of contributions from people around the world,” she continued.

Two of those donors are Patricia McKernan and her husband Chip Petrie, of Bozeman. The couple has been donating since 1999, according to foundation records. They first visited Yellowstone in 1982, McKernan said Monday.

“We fell in love with the park,” she said. “It captured our imaginations of the wildness of the West.”

They particularly enjoy wildlife viewing and fly fishing in the park, she said. Though they usually give an unrestricted gift, last year they dedicated most of their donation to the purchase of a wolf-tracking radio collar.

“The foundation is a good way to give back to something that means so much to us and to enhance others’ visit to the park,” McKernan said. So much of the foundation’s funds go to projects for which federal funding “just can’t keep up.”

Lewis agreed, saying the live-streaming Webcam at Old Faithful (www.greateryellowstonescience.org) installed last February, for example, would not be possible without foundation funds. Though an exact number of hits the site gets could not be established Monday, it is safe to say it receives thousands from around the world.

Paul Zambernardi, president of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, said Monday that although funding comes from more than 10,000 individuals throughout the world, a significant share of donations also comes from corporations who “are not in it for the recognition,” he said. “It’s their recognition of the park and its importance.”

Since 1996, the foundation has raised more than $50 million for more than 150 projects, Zambernardi said.

“It’s a lot of money that comes from all sectors,” said Elizabeth Marum, the foundation’s major gifts manager.

“It’s stunning,” she said of the $11 million record donation. “This is such worthy and democratic philanthropy.”

The foundation hopes to beat their record in 2009, but it could be tough.

“We had a good year,” Zambernardi said. “But we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. The economy is killing us.”

“We’re up against a tough year,” Marum agreed. But no matter how much money they raise, “Yellowstone will still be there and Old Faithful will still go off, even if we’re not coming in (to our Main Street offices) and turning on the lights everyday,” she said.

Jodi Hausen can be reached at jhausen@dailychronicle.com or 582-2630.

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